I fly home on Friday.

For perhaps the first time I am beginning to understand the mystique around the word Friday. Just saying it is enough to make my heart flutter, my mind less cluttered, my feet lighter. Like a charm or a spell, it pulls my mind irresistibly toward the future.

Friday.

In just a few days I will be home again. In just a few days I will belong to myself again.

I've developed some unsavory habits.

Most nights I don't make it to bed until 10:30 or 11:00. Each night as we prepare for bed I tell Ma that tomorrow is the day that we will be in bed by nine. I say it again when we're up by 6:00, wakened by the screaming of morning children. And still, we don't make it to bed until 11:00.

I've begun eating like a desperate person. I don't taste my food. I don't savor my food. I grab what is easy and stuff it in my mouth, bite after bite after bite, waiting for a small head to walk around the corner of the table. What will it demand I do for it? Eat. Eat quickly. Eat now. It is your only hope. I've developed a black raspberry and marshmallow shake habit. An almost every day sort of habit. I assume my body is attempting to make up for the missed calories. Pump them in! The straw, use the straw, it's faster!

(I do not regret the nearly every day shake habit. Only my desperate way of eating everything including my nearly every day shake.)

I brought two computers with me:

• a work computer - for working
• a personal computer - for writing

My work computer is out almost all the days. Work, work, work. My personal computer is out none of the days. No writing. None at all.

Soon, I will be able to sleep like me again. I will be able to eat like me again. I will be able to write like me again.

One thing I know with a certainty born of a three-child experience: I will do everything I can to ensure I am never a working mom. There is not enough patience, not enough kindness, not enough laughter, not enough time for exploring and learning and loving, not enough adventure.



Friday.

A New York Adventure

I've been in upstate New York for two and a half weeks.

I'm going to be here one week more.

I've learned a lot while being here.

Things like, I can drive a minivan like a champ. Or rather, like a soccer mom.

And I can get a tantrum throwing child out of the closet with laughs and smiles.

And I can make a pouty child throw a full-blown, crying in the bathroom for 20 minutes tantrum with barely a word.

And I still try to hard to make things happen for other people when they tell me they are important even though they don't act like they are important which means they probably aren't that important.

But mostly what I've learned is that life is crazy and unexpected in both good ways and bad and if I try too hard to hold onto it I'll miss all the good parts and most of the bad and I'll give myself a blazing headache.